With free electricity: Can a new PC pay for itself?

[jeffthebaker]

Hey guys, I've got 3 years left at college which means 3 years of free electricity. I want to know how feasible/possible it is to purchase a new PC, and earn back the payment via mining. There are no electricity costs, so essentially the question becomes can the PC pay for itself before it bricks or 3 years have passed. I have no previous mining experience outside of renting altcoin miners online with BTC. Am I stupid for even thinking this could work?

[adaseb]

Right now a GPU "might" pay for itself if you got most of the other computer parts.

But buying an entire new computer for $2000 with only 1 GPU which will only make like $1/day. Probably not going to happen even with free power.

[antantti]

Easy one. You already have a laptop?

Do not buy that pc. Wait, wait,wait and when the time is right invest to crypto. Thank me later.

Just don't ask what to buy and when.

[NiHaoMike]

Check out the used market for Bitcoin miners or try to find a free/dirt cheap Core 2 or newer machine that can accept a GPU.
Use this to get an idea of the profit you can make:
https://www.nicehash.com/?p=calc

[philipma1957]

Hey guys, I've got 3 years left at college which means 3 years of free electricity. I want to know how feasible/possible it is to purchase a new PC, and earn back the payment via mining. There are no electricity costs, so essentially the question becomes can the PC pay for itself before it bricks or 3 years have passed. I have no previous mining experience outside of renting altcoin miners online with BTC. Am I stupid for even thinking this could work?

no you are smart  here is a model to buy

http://www.provantage.com/cyberpowerpc-gma400~7CBPC082.htm

this would earn 2-3 a day on zec  or zcash 

[Jdope]

if you already have a computer to hook it up to then yeah sure, even on 50 cents a day (almost/less than 1/6 of its current earnings) a gtx 1080 will definitely pay itself in 3 years, and you'd have 3 years of warranty so any time it wears out send it for an RMA.

[jeffthebaker]

Easy one. You already have a laptop?

Do not buy that pc. Wait, wait,wait and when the time is right invest to crypto. Thank me later.

Just don't ask what to buy and when.

I'm already invested heavily in crypto. I'm not looking to make insane profit, I'm looking to get a beefy gaming PC for free or cheap. Anyways, as other replies have suggested, I'll see what costs I'd be looking at if I get a PC with a gtx 1080 and skim on other features.